


The Earthquake

by Reshma



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Aunts & Uncles, Authority Figures, BAMF May Parker (Spider-Man), Character Study, Extended Metaphors, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Loss of Parent(s), May Parker (Spider-Man) Needs a Hug, May Parker POV, Mother-Son Relationship, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Other, Parent Death, Parenthood, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 06:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17761175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reshma/pseuds/Reshma
Summary: He may not be hers in blood but she is his, undoubtedly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta was KlllerQueenWrites

It's been three years since Ben died.

Ben's death is an earthquake in their life. More so, the damage it leaves behind is what fuels May's hatred towards the world and it's bullshit. The aftermath of this metaphorical earthquake is what plummets May into her current overbearing state.

Immediately, they deal with financial issues, May runs more double shifts, reroutes her entire schedule for Peter's extracurriculars and they live life frugally for a while. Money is tight and government assistance doesn't come easy for a nurse. Peter's socks have holes in them and there are days all May can afford for lunch is tomato soup from the hospital cafeteria. She fears that she looks as thin as some of the anemic children CPS brings in to her ward.

Peter is her anchor. He doesn't see value in life based on materialism or a new, shiny pair of jeans. He doesn't act like having more money or items cements his purpose in life or that having the largest social circle is what defines his worth.

He's kind, loyal and loving, always there to help or go the extra mile for someone, even a stranger, long before he becomes Spider-Man. It's small gestures like how Peter will put away the groceries without May asking after a long shift when she goes to shower the minute she's through the door or how he leaves a microwaveable TV dinner to thaw out in the fridge the nights he’s at Ned's or patrolling. It's between the lines in the way he marks their calendar hanging on their refrigerator the days rent is due when he gets to the mail before May. It's in the tiny cracks no one else sees when Peter is at school and May gets home from a graveyard shift; she'll walk into their apartment and on their kitchen counter lays a sketch of Ben or an origami spider.

He's smart, street-savvy and a scholar. May damn well knows he doesn't get that from her  
side or the family and tells Ben as much as Peter grows older. Maybe it's from Mary or Richard but the kid is a genius, despite her bias; he's a human encyclopedia and calculator as well as incredibly wise for sixteen. He finds joy in machines and wires, endless words on paper pages of studies she can't even pronounce and watches hours of documentary footage with the intensity of a lion stalking his prey.

He's so much more of a man May could have ever hoped for.

If she's being honest, she never wanted kids. Ben and her talked about it before their marriage in passing but with no real promise to their conversations. The concept of carrying around a baby for nine torturous months, angry stretch marks and stitches branding her for the rest of her life, shoving it out after hours of extreme pain and paying more money than she makes in a year for school, clothes and a crib sounds like a lose-lose situation to her. A slimy, hungry and breakable infant dependent on her for eighteen years sounds like her worst nightmare.

When Mary and Richard bring Peter around for the first time, Ben has already met him in the hospital. The two brothers have always been close and May didn't really want to be around to see the process of Mary's lady bits become roadkill forever.

They tell her he was born heavy at eight pounds but all May sees is a tiny alien. He's a small caterpillar cocooned in a baby blue blanket barely the length of her arm. His eyes are scrunched shut with wrinkles and no eyebrows. His hair is an ashy sort of brown May hadn't seen since her teenage years of dyeing. His fingers are half the size of her pinky and his body contorts in small outbursts without any real sense of control or existentialism. He's buckled in a light gray baby swing swaying back and forth. Safety belts mummify his miniscule form and he's seconds away from practically being rolled in bubble wrap when they visit the Parker's apartment a week after the birth.

May didn't even really want to hold him but she could never say no to Ben with his big twinkly eyes and toothy grin. She can tell in that moment that it's something he wants; a family to spoil, love and take care of. He wants the sleepless nights and hyperactive toddler stage, the screaming and tantrums, the spring concerts at school and the swimming lessons; he wants to be the reason someone's life is full of rose-colored memories and stability, not woe and strife.

She sees the way Peter's eyes crinkle when Ben's eyes shine and they giggle during the first year of the kid's life.

But they've talked about it; it's ultimately May's choice if she has to carry a mini demon and raise it into a bratty teenager with first-world dilemmas, cell phones and trendy Adidas earmuffs. That's not to say she actively tries to annihilate the chance of pregnancy from her life, just that she loathes to embrace it without protest. Despite it all, Ben doesn't seem disappointed, just resigned. If it happens, May figures, they'll deal with it.

He cries an ear splitting sort of gurgle when she holds him for the first time. Mary is inches away, guiding her hands and hushing Peter as May sits on their leather sofa awkwardly positioning the newborn between her arms and chest, out of her depth and inexperienced. He's too delicate and she fears if she so much as lets a breath out, he'll shatter into a million pieces.

She's never had to deal with this in her years as a nurse. She's not a midwife or an OB-GYN, only passes by the nurseries and NICU. She caters to the elderly and non-life threatening patients. It's calmer and the stakes are much lower.

She's glad in those years that she doesn't have to deal with this for more than a few hours a month. He's a human hurricane, destroying everything in his path and taking every ounce of resources and energy away from Mary and Richard.

They tell her it's worth it to see their own child take on the world but it never changes her mind. She knows the value of life, she's a nurse for Christ's sake! She values the children in her society and the leaders of tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera. But these gross, flailing and danger prone disasters that are babies are never really something she sees for herself and Ben.

Pete is scrawny but full of energy as a kid; he could barrel into a wall without a blink and get up within a millisecond or break into a million fragments at the slightest gust of wind toppling him over like a house of cards.

The few nights they babysit him before his parents die, he's tucked tightly into the covers like a burrito, safe and secure. The image of a newborn baby Peter flashes into her mind in those moments, so breakable and, yet, so full of energy, life and potential. His body is clad in layers of cotton and polyester clinging to him, insulating his head to his toes in their spare bedroom.

She never quite gets that image out of her head, a caterpillar in its cocoon, hibernating and waiting to transform, resulting in her nickname of ‘bug’ long before Queens favorite vigilante debuts.  
When Mary and Richard die, Ben barely takes one glance at the boy clutching the same baby blue blanket he was wrapped in before embracing him and calling him their's. It's a haunting image, a young Peter Parker surrounded by police officers and eyes watery, shrouded with cloudy fear and throbbing uncertainty at the hospital May works at.

She'll take it to her grave, the fact that she considered calling CPS a few days after they cleared out Mary and Richard's apartment and began to adapt to life with Peter. It wasn't because they were treating him badly but that May never felt so out of her element.

She's not nurturing in the same way Mary was, hugs and kisses, or prepared for every stone life throws at her like Richard was, pay docks and workplace strikes.

Imagine not studying for a test that is promised in ten years from now and being told it's happening tomorrow. There are only two options; sink or swim.

She loves the boy, sure, but love from an aunt is not the same as love from a mother. She doesn't know how to play the right types of cartoons so he doesn't become a sociopath; she doesn't know what's trendy for six year-old’s birthday parties or what labels won't have Peter bullied; she doesn't know the near FBI negotiation tactics to have a fussy kid eat his spinach and brussels sprouts without screaming in her face; in truth, she doesn't know if there could've ever be a ‘right time’ for kids between her and Ben if Mary and Richard had lived.

She doesn’t know some nights if she even really loves Peter or just accepts what life throws at her and tries to manage. It’s not that she doesn’t feel the same concern or worry towards the youngest Parker, just that it’s a matter of circumstance. She’s only forcing out her maternal hormones for the kid because no one else besides her and Ben will. It’s not natural, in a sense, the innate ability of nurture versus nature, that every other mother at the school drop off zone seems to possess.

She changes her mind quickly, however, when she starts to understand raising a kid is so much more than feeding it and dropping it off to school. It's about teaching it morals, right and wrong, respect, empathy and courage in moments of despair. It's about showing it that the reflection in the mirror isn't all that defines its insides or showing him the differences around the world, pop culture and politics combined.

In truth, it's about recognizing May's power to control the world in Peter's perspective, and in turn, her power to control the world. It's about strength.

It's never guaranteed that he'll become the next Hawking or Mozart, but she has the power to bring a person with sincere emotions and unwavering ethics to better society. She has the power to turn him into the next John Wayne Gacy or Tim Burton.

She knows that even without Ben, the days she lives on this planet as ‘just Peter's aunt’ are so much more and unbelievably influential to a boy with too much fucked up sorrow in his bones than the rest of the world.

She knows she doesn't love Peter at first, as a son; he's not hers, not really. It quickly flips suddenly one day, the promise that she would die for him without blinking twice, scalding hot fire or drowning a thousand times, be buried alive or comb the bottom of the ocean if it meant that he was safe and sound, a dashing smile a shadow of Mary’s illuminating his feature, even just for a moment.

He's her nephew, her baby, her bug and her little spider. She could never be more overprotective or worried while also hiding her heavy underlying pride towards him.

He may not be hers in blood but she is his, undoubtedly.

And she's known it all his life, so when the almighty Tony Stark and Spider-Man steal Peter Parker away from a broken family cracked at the surface, she shouldn't be as angry or emotional as she is.

He is her sun, her moon and whole galaxy, comets and black holes included, on the days she wishes it was her instead of Ben so Pete could have a better life. He's her rock the nights she sobs into the empty side of the bed, genuinely believing she's a bad parent, and the spring mornings that she wishes she was better at it all, raising a son that never belonged to her; not really.

And yet, years later, when she thinks the worst has passed, there's the aching reminder of the natural disaster of losing Ben.

It shakes the very foundation the two remaining Parkers barely stand on, rips their home apart and tears any ounce of security they once had. It breaks May's heart over and over again.

One would think during their wedding anniversary, lonely Christmases or Valentine's Day would be the worst, but May begs to differ.

What normally would be earthquake survivors finding a treasured souvenir broken beyond repair or a burst pipe in the basement that screws up the whole plumbing system years later is different for May and Peter; just when May thinks she's managing everything okay, something in the world crashes into her and breaks her a little more; it's at the work, when a loved one comes to collect their partner from her ward at the hospital, desperate and crowding each other with attention at a near-death experience; it's at the grocery store when a young boy with mud-brown hair gets squished between his parents in a bear hug in the parking lot before they tuck him into his car seat with caution; and it's during a blackout when Peter is out on patrol, sitting alone illuminated by old, orange-hued candles nearly melted completely, wicks bent lopsidedly, a glass of wine in one hand and clutching her phone in the other, tears streaming down her face, that the earthquake haunts her.

It's on that darkened night, she sees a past life flashing in her eyes and heart, the picture-perfect horizon painted with just Ben and her. In another lifetime, they would've played a stupid board game, cuddled tightly for warmth layered on their worn, grey sofa with piles of blankets, made hot chocolate and topped it with a bottle of Bailey's on his mother's old stove, no need for gasoline or electric, or even just sat on the balcony staring at a rare Queens, hushed and dark, no evidence of a city that never sleeps in sight.

The anniversary of Ben's death isn't what May would call an ‘aftermath’ day; it's too sober and somber, ashen and sickly looking splotches of years starting her skin for the rest of the day. It creeps up on her too fast and the weeks leading up to that day disappear like sand through her fingers.

When she finds out about Spider-Man, she can barely breathe through her fury. She worked her ass off to make sure Peter was as happy and healthy as she could manage. But, here he was, putting himself into the first line of danger, disregarding every sacrifice she and Ben had to make, every dollar and every minute set aside to him. He's skating on thin ice between life and death each night without anything to break his fall.

Stark is trying to turn her baby bug into a soldier, a boy into a man, too quickly.

She flays his ass alive after the initial shock and rage take over. Distantly, she notes that perhaps even the Hulk would cower in intimidation.

She screams over the phone for Stark to meet her at her apartment the next day on the night she finds out. She's not going to try killing Stark on his own turf; that'd just make her more frantic and possibly nominate her as a candidate for the mental health ward. She calls in a family emergency day at work and seethes until she hears Peter's soft snores.

That night, she barely sleeps and can't help but desperation of a mental breakdown and an empty bottle of white wine laying at her feet. She cries for Ben and drunkenly asks God what she needs to do. She wonders ‘what ifs’, constants and variables and different timelines; if Peter would have always become Spider-Man with or without Ben; if Stark would have always found Peter, too intelligently bright and too heroic be ignored by the world. She wonders if Mary would be at her throat right now. She wonders if Richard is sighing in disapproval.

But she remembers that Ben was never one to give into his inner demons; if he was around, he would shake her by the arms until she snapped out of it and told her to get a grip. He'd tell her to make a plan and stick to it because that's the woman he fell in love with.

And, so, she does just that. She yells at Tony Stark for a whole two hours while Peter is at school before she feels like she can finally breathe again. He looks apologetic and May can't really tell if he's sincere or not.

(Her face is hot with anger when an uncharacteristically quiet Tony says after about an hour, “Even if I took the suit away and cut ties with him and the Avengers, would it stop him, May?”

She goes deathly quiet and won't look at him in the eyes.

“I'll admit I may encourage most of Spider-Man fighting bigger crime syndicates,” May balks at Tony's nonchalance, “but he wouldn't stop putting himself in the first line of defense if I tried.”

She'll never say it to his face but Stark is right. She still doesn't like the man, and generally would rather he fucked off and never came within ten feet of here again, but his intentions aren't as harsh and brazen as she thought. He wants what's best for him, superhero or not.)

They come up with a long winded resolution. They can't ban him totally or he'll just rebel and find a different way to be Spider-Man. She can't force him to stay grounded for the rest of high school, either; she wants him to be happy and safe but still be a teenager. She can't teach him life lessons if he never makes his own decisions.

For patrol, they decide a compromise; his focus stays with school and May stays in the loop. In effect then and there, Peter has a midnight curfew void if he's behind in schoolwork; Decathlon practice takes priority, not Spider-Man; she wants him doing as many normal teenager things like parties or drinking if it means he's away from web slinging for a night; he sticks to Queens, no excursions to Germany or Maryland again; no Avengers’ missions unless it's end of the world; and on her days off, no patrolling or else she'll never see him again.

It's bittersweet and feels like she's in a custody battle as a paranoid divorcee, not a widow trying to mend the bursting seams of her family.

Tony sets up May with an app on her phone that shows Peter's general location if he's in the suit. Tracking him 24/7 is a little too suffocating for her, and if Peter is smoking in the bleachers or skipping school once in a while, she doesn't need to know. Stark also forces May to take a monthly cheque to feed Peter properly, much to May's protests and dismay.

They're not a charity chase just because they can't afford fancy Bugattis and yachts, but she knows he's right; now more than ever, it makes her feel like Stark is sending his child support that's due.

She sends his ridiculous gifts and cheques back to the compound the first few times and on more than one occasion; keys to a brand new Audi not even available on the Hong Kong or German market for Peter's sixteenth birthday; private jet plane tickets for an all expenses paid vacation to Hawaii in a five star hotel, luxury recreational day activities and lavish restaurants beyond the most whimsical corners of her imagination; and even her own studio loft closer to work furnished and stocked. She finds out quickly each time she returns something, she will be greeted with a cheque double the original amount and gifts more extreme than the prior.

She never cashes the cheques and sends materialistic items to wards throughout work; stuffed animals for the children's terminal care department, designer clothes to the fundraising auction committee and toy bobble heads of Iron Man to the MRI waiting rooms. To be fair, the man with the suit could cause a headache severe enough for a cat scan just by being in the same room as May.

Some days, she would rather just put a bullet through his head for being so damn attentive and caring towards Peter while also managing to be the biggest reckless asshole on the planet.

One day every other week she agrees to let him train with the Avengers or work in Stark's lab. Reluctantly, she agrees that he need to learn how to fight but if he comes back in worse condition than he left, May won't hesitate in cutting the cord. She demands that no crazy doctors or scientists poke or prod him with needles for experimentation; no identity reveals until he finishes college and has a stable job; and among all else, that every injury, so much as a papercut, is reported to May.

It's like the weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She no longer is as alone as before, caring for a teenager who just wants to do good for the world.

Stark and her aren't friends, certainly not co-parents and are still far from civil, but they agree that Peter is May's child.

Peter, who thinks the fate of the boroughs rest on his spandex-lined shoulders. Peter, whose eyes are so shiny and starry-eyed at age five, she could forget why she was crying. Peter, whose sheer determination to save people is greater than all of the Avengers combined.

It's not so much a grudge as it is her mama bear instincts kicking in, despite the pardon against the Rogues and the world's idolization of heroes. Begrudgingly, May knows they're not all bad but she won't go down without a goddamn fight.

She's trying her fucking best, alright?

And, so, she decides she knows what's best, for a time: whether it be the fact that she was an unwilling mother at one point, a widow or just a nurse in New York trying to make ends meet, when she sees a teenager with a messiah complex clad in red and blue, she knows nothing can knock her down.

The earthquake may destroy the very foundations she stands on, but it passes and, like all natural disasters, she comes out of new and prepared for whatever this fucked up world may throw at her.


	2. Not a chapter

Reposting because I fucked up.

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from my fic An Earthquake, A Blizzard and A Storm that I love as a standalone.  
> K bye.


End file.
